LOW BODICES.

Observer, Volume 7, Issue 338, 30 May 1885, Page 6

LOW BODICES.

Some heated discussions have taken place of late in regard to what constitutes " full" dress. It is undoubtedly true that the custom of wearing low bodices is extending and increasing Jin a direction that is least desirable — viz., among young girls. Now, there is no particular harm in the wearing of low, decently-cut bodices. Fjrty or fifty years ago children and j'oung women wore them universally. But there is harm in the wide difference between basques cut high to the throat and bodices which form a mere strap at the waist ; there is immodesty in stripping a young girl so that the charm of her fresh young womanhood is for ever destroyed, and her sense of what is right and proper for ever blunted. Dressmakers are more at fault in the matter than mothers, and could do more to prevent fashion from proving a snare. They tell girls that it is prudish and oldmaidish to object to a cut which leaves the bust exposed, and that fashion leaders and authorities wear them so — and so the mother may utter her protest. She very often does, but she is powerless before the combined influence of the modiste and the desire of the girl, just entering life, to represent the latest style and show her pretty person to advantage. Yet it not infrequently happens that such exhibitions are not only suggestively indecent, but very unbecoming. Dresses cut low may be round, or square, or pointed, but they are modest and womanly. Low bodices are not necessarily objectionable, nor all high ones unobjectionable. The latter may be cut square or heart-shaped, and left open so low in front that almost any low bodice would be raiment for a vestal compared with it. There is nearly always more than one way of attaining an object; and if an exhibition of that kind is an object, an edict against low bodices would not prevent it. What is needed is self-respect enough among women to draw the line, and not permit any imaginary authority to interfere, to the discredit of their own judgment and sense of propriety.